“This is part of what’s so insidious about press savviness: it tries to hog realism to itself.”

As those who follow me on Twitter know, I’ve been keeping a public notebook on “the church of the savvy,” which is my name for the belief system that binds together our political press corps in Washington. Though they see themselves as the opposite of ideological, the people in the national press actually share an ideology: the religion of savviness. Since it differs from both liberal ideology and conservative ideology and from political thought itself, savviness often eludes description, or even recognition as a set of beliefs. That’s why I keep my running notebook. I’m trying to teach readers how to “see” the savvy.

Savviness! Deep down, that’s what reporters want to believe in and actually do believe in— their own savviness and the savviness of certain others (including operators like Karl Rove.) In politics, they believe, it’s better to be savvy than it is to be honest or correct on the facts. It’s better to be savvy than it is to be just, good, fair, decent, strictly lawful, civilized, sincere or humane.

Savviness is what journalists admire in others. Savvy is what they themselves dearly wish to be. (And to be unsavvy is far worse than being wrong.) Savviness—that quality of being shrewd, practical, well-informed, perceptive, ironic, “with it,” and unsentimental in all things political—is, in a sense, their professional religion. They make a cult of it.

To the people inside it, savviness is not a cult. It is not a professional church or “belief system.” It’s not really an object fit for contemplation at all. But they would say that political journalists need to be savvy observers because in politics the unsavvy are hapless, clueless, deluded, clownish, or in some cases extreme. They get run over: easily. They get disappointed: needlessly. They get angry–fruitlessly–because they don’t know how things work in practical terms.

The savvy do know how things work inside the game of politics, and it is this knowledge they try to wield in argument…. instead of argument. In this sense savviness as the church practices it is the exemption from the political that believers think will come to them because they are journalists striving only to report on politics or conduct analysis, not to “win” within the contest as it stands.

Prohibited from joining in political struggles, dedicated to observing what is, regardless of whether it ought to be, the savvy believe that these disciplines afford them a special view of the arena, cured of excess sentiment, useless passon, ideological certitude and other defects of vision that players in the system routinely exhibit. As I wrote on Twitter the other day, “the savvy don’t say: I have a better argument than you… They say: I am closer to reality than you. And more mature.”

Now in order for this belief system to operate effectively, it has to continually position the journalist and his or her observations not as right where others are wrong, or virtuous where others are corrupt, or visionary where others are short-sghted, but as practical, hardheaded, unsentimental, and shrewd where others are didactic, ideological, and dreamy. This is part of what’s so insidious about press savviness: it tries to hog realism to itself.

For example, Peter Baker of the New York Times is an excellent represenative of the church and its teachings. This weekend he published a “news analysis” of Obama’s ambiguous accomplishments on climate change at Copenhagen and health care reform in the Congress. Wherein we find this:

Neither deal represented a final victory, and in fact some on the left in his own party argued that both of them amounted to sellouts on principle in favor of expediency. But both agreements served the purpose of keeping the process moving forward, inching ever closer toward Mr. Obama’s goals and providing a jolt of adrenaline for a White House eager to validate its first year in office.

Did you catch it? Opposition from the left isn’t presented as an argument about what will actually change the health care system, and Baker’s dismissal of it doesn’t reflect his disagreement with the left about what will actually change the health care system. The exemption from the poliitcal is operating. The left wanted Obama to “stick to principle,” but the realty is Obama is moving closer to his goals. The savvy see that; the people shouting “sell out” do not. Let’s watch that move again. Baker:

[Obama] may not get the health care plan he envisioned but, if the legislation passes, he will insure 30 million more people, stop insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions and at least try to rein in costs. He will not end climate change in his presidency, and may not get the market-based emission caps he wants, but he may move the country, and the world, toward meaningful action.

Of course, to many on both sides of the aisle, there is a less sympathetic narrative. To the left, Mr. Obama seems increasingly to lack the fire to fight on matters of principle. To the right, he appears to be overreaching, saddling the country with debt and the weight of a bloated and overly intrusive government.

To the savvy, the center is a holy place: political grace resides there. The profane is the ideological extremes. The adults converse in the pragmatic middle ground where insiders cut their deals. On the wings are the playgrounds for children. But to argue directly for these propositions is out of the question: political reporters don’t conduct arguments, they tell us what’s happening! Instead an argument is made by positioning the players a certain way while reporting the news and doing “analysis.” Obama is getting things done; critics are scoring ideological points (big government!) or standing on principle. Peter Baker isn’t an Obama supporter. But he welcomes presidents to his church.

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Thanks, Jay, for your reflections on The Church of the Savvy. I’ve met more than a few members of that congregation in my day. I think the hardest thing for the savvy to realize is that the center is not neutral. Nor is it disinterested. But it is a position that is equidistant from the most passionate partisans. That position seems safe in an age where journalists are under constant, and unfair, attacks for their ideological bias. There is another distinction that serves the purposes of the savvy. That is the value of showing rather than telling. This never creates the most transparent political posture, but it makes the presentation of news seem evidenciary. The savvy can say: I am not expressing an opinion here; I am only marshalling the evidence and letting the reader draw conclusions. I greatly prefer the approach that won the St. Pete Times one of their Pulitzer Prizes last year. In essence, they took to heart Rosentiel’s description of journalism as a discipline of verification not assertion. They created Politifact, an online and print process in which they test the assertions of politicians against the available evidence. Just today, for example, they listed the most outrageous lies of 2009. The winner was the accusation that a new health care plan would include "death panels." Keep up the great work.

Thanks for an insightful take on an important group’s view of political morality and values. Without a decent press "democracy" is an empty notion or, worse, a fiction used to justify unending wars of conquest.

Is it the Church of The Savvy, or perhaps the Church of The Pragmatic? Or the Church of The Smart? That doesn’t seem to elude description to me. Seems to me what your project seems to set out to do is to pooh-pooh those who are in the know, or experts? I applaud such savvy disengagement; although I think ideologically driven commentary has its place, the savvy, as you call it, belong in the public discourse more and more. One question: Why now? Why criticize actual well-informed commentators–as long as they are, of course–who divorce themselves from the white noise of advocacy and ad hominems? I don’t find condescension in Peter Baker’s piece you see; instead, I see him describing the political scene in a rather even-handed way.

Jay: I both admire and partly disagree with your analysis of the savvy. Among other things, I agree with Facebook User that Peter Baker’s analysis was a useful piece of dispassionate explanation. The fact is ??? and Lord knows we’ve been seeing it all year ??? if there is a consensus for health-care reform in Congress, that consensus exists well to the right of where liberals and progressives would like it to be.Blame it on the founders for giving each state two senators. If it were up to the House, which represents urban, progressive parts of the country in proportion to their numbers, perhaps we would not only have a public option but a single-payer system as well. It is neither cynical nor condescending of Baker to explain reality.That said, I’m glad you’re keeping the heat on what too often is the mindless centrism of elite journalism. As you rightly point out, there’s nothing neutral about centrism ??? it’s an ideology all its own.

I don’t think Baker’s story is a terrible story. It’s in my piece because it’s just normal business in the Church of the Savvy. Normal, not outrageous.Baker describes the left’s dissatisfaction with the plan at it now stands as a disagreement about whether "principle" should prevail or the messy politics of the achievable. Obviously you agree with him that this is a good way of describing the differences. I do not. I think the left–or some of that persuasion– disagrees with Obama that the plan will change very much. That’s not a fight over whether principle should guide public policy or the art of the compromise should. But Baker sees it that way, and in so doing shows us how the Church of the Savvy habitually sees.

I see. I guess I’m of the mind that principle never guides public policy; it might inform it, give it color, validate it after the fact. Compromise and pragmatism, meanwhile, and the art of the possible, gets things done. I suppose I’m a disciple of this Church of the Savvy of which you speak. But most adults are. It’s not like one needs to have long, drawn-out debates about the positions of what you call principled and I call ideologues, whether from left or right. These positions never change. That leaves whole swathes of compromise to actually get things done. The healthcare legislation is a perfect example, but every other piece of legislation would work as well.

I will just repeat what I said, since it didn’t take. I think the left disagrees with Obama that the plan will change very much. That’s not a fight over whether principle should guide public policy or the art of the compromise should. But Baker sees it that way, and so do you, Daniel.

Not quite sure I’m following you, Jay. It seems to me that liberal and moderate Democrats agree that the principle is a better health-insurance system than we have now, with more people covered. Thus, it’s absolutely about principle, and I don’t see Baker divorcing himself or standing apart from that idea.A truly unprincipled journalistic position to take is to praise Sarah Palin for her success in driving the debate last summer with her false "death panel" accusation. As we know, some journalists did exactly that. It’s a classic example of the Church of the Savvy at its most toxic.

Thanks, Dan. Alas, I don’t know how much clearer I can make it. To me it is pretty clear that an argument about whether Policy X is effective-likely to work–is not the same as an argument over whether Policy X is sufficiently "principled. " I see the left and Obama as tangling over competing realisms. Baker does not. Why is that so obscure? It doesn’t seem so to me.

I think it threatens to be obscure because some of these terms are getting muddy. It might rest in confusion over a question of whether Proposed Policy X will "work," as you say, Jay, and whether another will think it will "pass." The former, in its form here, is abstract, the latter concrete. Even though you’re skipping a step in your own comment when you speak on behalf of the left and say that wing of political thinking doesn’t think this current healthcare legislation "will change very much." But I do agree with you that the deal-making mindset is as much of a Church as the so-called principled one. But then you getting close to making a false equivalent, I’m afraid, between the Savvy press corps and all moderate dealmakers. These two might seem in bed with each other in stories such as Baker’s, but in others, as Dan Kennedy says, these same journos prove themselves complicit in so-called principled ones: Death Panel/Swift Boat/Guns and Religiongate-type memes. Unfortunately, these CoS journos of which you speak take absolutely everything at face value–not just the vaild and meaty arguments as healthcare reform. I admit I fall on the side of moderate/consensus-building in my own politics, but it seems to me your idea of CoS could be, or should be, more about looking at how the non-CoS might see Proposed Policy X from the outside-in, rather than the inside-out. I don’t think it’s about mis-representing whichever principled position they’re addressing, as you think Baker’s story does; at its best, this type of commentary is about stepping outside the story, objectively, and trying to remain a disinterested party. This idea is a good one, but gets muddied by a bad use of examples.

Jay: I don’t think we disagree. Perhaps your Baker example was too subtle for me. Almost anything chosen at random from the Politico would make a more obvious case study, but maybe your were trying to show that the Church of the Savvy has parishioners at the Times, too.

<i>To the left, Mr. Obama seems increasingly to lack the fire to fight on matters of principle. To the right, he appears to be overreaching, saddling the country with debt and the weight of a bloated and overly intrusive government</i>This example appears to contradict your point. If this were truly an analysis that was firmly rooted in Savviness, it would not attribute asymmetrical motives to the President???s opponents.A truly <i>savvy</i> analysis would not have cited a legitimate, principled policy objection to Obama???s opponents on the right–anti-Keynesians, they oppose deficit spending; conservatives, they support limited government. Instead, surely, a <i>savvy</i> analysis would have said something like?????????to the right, the candidate who ran for office as a principled post-partisan appears, once elected, to have capitulated to his activist base.???

Excellent point, Jay. I had never noticed this, and the way you tie it into the psychology of journalists is very compelling.I like it especially because it explains three things I had wondered about.One is the way a lot of political journalism is, effectively, sports reporting: all about who is winning and losing, no mention of substance. It’s not that they’re just ignoring the substance; to appear savvy, they have to leave that out.The second is how prone beltway journalism is to being suckered by bright lines of patter and the talking point of the moment. It’s hard to tell savvy and glib apart, especially if you’re on deadline.The third is their reed-in-the-wind relationship to power. If savvy is all about shrewd pragmatism in politics, then whoever’s up, or on the way up, has to be the savviest. Pragmatism’s acid test, success, can only be applied in the long term and across many experiences, which is why scientists are such fiends for data and confirmation. In the short term, you get the same problem that Taleb exposed so brilliantly in "Fooled by Randomness": the glibly lucky can, for a time, appear much more successful than the actually clueful.

I’ve been trying to put my finger on this insidious trend since the 1990s. Thank you, Jay Rosen, for revealing and expressing it with such clarity. Anyone who doubts the church of the savvy should watch the Sunday morning political talk shows– if you can stomach them. The smirk says it all. Another way to see all this is that the savvy press, like their counterparts within political circles, wish to be above the fray at all times. If you care about issues, you’re below them. If you care about issues that involve (shudder) poor people, workers’ rights, or the environment, you’re a total pariah. You get the really big smirk.

Jay,A fun exercise: Take a published piece of savviness and mark it up as if the reporter(s) had submitted it to you. How would you have edited one of these pieces? What notes would you send back to the reporter(s)?RW

I would parse it like this:"Principles" are an attempt to grapple with the real world effects a policy would have. If bill X is passed, will the outcome be just? Will those who suffer be helped (from the left), or will the new rules have unintended consequences that unfairly hurt the market (from the right)? Principle sees these outcomes as moral, and arguments as mattering because they say what the real impact will be on real people, and they care when those people suffer."Savvy" takes it as read that other people are principled and disagree, but is concerned ONLY with which of them wins. Arguments, to the Savvy, are simply gambits that partisan players make in an attempt to win the game. The savvy see themselves as omniscient referee who floats above the fray, unsoiled by its (perceived) mud-slinging. The only morality of the savvy is to impart respect to the winners, and contempt for the losers. It doesn???t matter WHAT they win or lose at, the only imperative is to pile scorn on the eventual loser. To hint that you care about the truth value of an argument is to be suckered into being a player, thus losing your exalted perch and becoming one of the great unwashed upon whom these gambits have supposedly been designed to work. This is considered a respectable activity only as long as you a) consistently win, and b) give sufficient nods and winks to convey underneath it all you still realize that it is ACTUALLY all just a game (i.e., to be a seasoned and successful political operative).

The savinedd worshippers in the press are just smug because they’re not as credulous as the rubes. But where they’ve failed their cruial role in our democracy is that they forget that politics — and political power — is supposed to be a means to an end, not an end in itself.

I’ve been following Jay for quite a while, have heard him refer to Church of the Savvy, but didn’t bother to follow up on what he meant. I should have–his insights are very helpful. I see it as a focus on process over substance. I see it as bad reporting. I see it as journalists talking primarily to themselves. I see it as journalists abdicating part of their responsibility, because I think part of their job is as teachers. They should be teaching the public by sharing as complete a picture of a topic as possible. That doesn’t happen when you narrow your scope in savviness. (truthiness??)

Mimi: I’m with Jay 99 percent of the way on this. Sometimes process is the story, as in understanding why a public option couldn’t be part of health-care reform even though a majority of the public wanted it.But I don’t think Jay would disagree with me on that. The problem he’s identified is that, too often (most of the time?), the media focus on process without placing it in the context of substance.Then you get madness like the Chris Matthews clip Jay has been calling to everyone’s attention:http://bit.ly/aR6B9C

Thanks for an insightful take on an important group’s view of political morality and values. Without a decent press "democracy" is an empty notion or, worse, a fiction used to justify unending wars of conquest.

Roy Peter Clark got the point in my opinion. Thanks for your honest comment, that one opened my eyes a bit! The problem he’s identified is that, the media focus on process without placing it in the context of substance!

I suppose I’m a disciple of this Church of the Savvy of which you speak. But most adults are. It’s not like one needs to have long, drawn-out debates about the positions of what you call principled and I call ideologues, whether from left or right. These positions never change. That leaves whole swathes of compromise to actually get things done.

I think we need to bring more ideas for this purpose. Involvement of young people can be handy in this regard. I am happy to find a good post here. <a href="http://www.dvdsreleasedates.com/">dvd releases</a>